Fifteen signposted viewpoints along the entire coast, from Cap de Sant Antoni to the Granadella castle. Cap de la Nau is the best-known stop, but the short walk to Cap Prim, passing the Sardinera bay along the way, may well be the finest of the lot.
How many miradors are there, and what route do you follow?
Fifteen numbered viewpoints are scattered along the entire coast of Jávea, from Cap de Sant Antoni in the north to the Granadella castle in the south. They belong to the official Ruta dels Miradors de Xàbia, also known as the Ruta de los Miradores de Xàbia, and each point has its own numbered sign and its own page on the council's tourism website. A continuous walking path linking all fifteen does not exist: the only official route leaflet from the town council describes a 27.2 kilometre cycling route, starting from the car park at the Arenal, that takes in thirteen of the fifteen points. Most miradors are therefore separately signposted spots along the coast road, each with its own small parking area.
Which miradors can you reach by car, and where do you park?
Most miradors can be reached directly by car, with a small parking spot right along the road. At Cap de Sant Antoni, the best plan is to park around three hundred metres before the lighthouse and walk the last stretch. At Granadella and at Portitxol/Cala Barraca, paid parking applies during the summer season: a hundred and thirty spaces at Granadella on Carrer Pic Tort, fifty nine at Portitxol on Carrer Barraca, nine euros a day at each, payable at the meter or through the ELPARKING app, with no option to reserve, and a barrier that closes once the car park fills up. Anyone who would rather not hunt for a spot can take the tourist road train in July and August, running into September, from the car park at Urbanització La Guardia Park to the Granadella beach, with departures on a fixed hourly schedule, six euros for adults and four euros for children up to twelve.
Which miradors can only be reached on foot?
At two spots on the route you walk a clear step further than the car park. El Molins, the eleven surviving windmills in Les Planes, is reached via a variant of the PR-CV 355 walking trail. At Creu del Portitxol two officially registered walking trails begin: SL-CV 98 to Cap Prim, one kilometre, around twenty minutes, with a side path to the small pebble beach of Cala Sardinera, and SL-CV 97 to Cala Barraca, 0.75 kilometres, around a quarter of an hour. That makes Creu del Portitxol the only spot on the route where you genuinely walk into the coast without a car. Cap Prim itself is not one of the fifteen official miradors, but is already visible from the point at Caletes, a little further north on the route.
What is there to see at the Cap de la Nau lighthouse and at Creu del Portitxol?
Cap de la Nau is the easternmost point of the entire Valencian coast, around eighty five kilometres from Ibiza. The octagonal lighthouse is twenty metres tall, stands at about a hundred and twenty two metres above sea level and has a light range of twenty three nautical miles, with a continuous flashing signal; it only came into service late, after an access road to the headland had first been built. At the foot of the headland lies the Cova dels Orguens cave, described by the naturalist Cavanilles towards the end of the eighteenth century, and early in the twentieth century the headland was the site of the first wireless telegraphy trials between mainland Spain and Ibiza. At Creu del Portitxol, once a natural anchorage, you look out over the little island of Portitxol, up to three hundred metres across, once inhabited and the site of excavated burial finds.
What else is there to see between Cap de Sant Antoni and Cap Negre?
The lighthouse at Cap de Sant Antoni, on cliffs around a hundred and seventy metres high, dates from the mid nineteenth century; before that a fourteenth century hermitage and a watchtower against pirates once stood here, and the area now holds two plant micro-reserves. At Punta del Arenal you look out over the site of a Roman processing complex, known as the Baños de la Reina, where salted fish and garum were made. Séquia de la Nòria shows a Roman era channel cut into the tosca rock that carried seawater to a salt pan area, later supplemented with a waterwheel driven by a pack animal. Cala Blanca is historically linked to the almadraba, a fishing technique using a large net worked from both land and boat, mainly used for tuna. At Caletes you overlook the whole bay, with the low, fossilised dune ridge of Primer Montañar and Segundo Montañar to the north and the cliffs of Cap Prim to the south. L'illa looks out over the island of Portitxol and a small companion islet, with a second plant micro-reserve in the bay. At La Falzia, a hundred and fifty metres from Cala Portitxol, the panorama runs from Cap de Sant Antoni to Cap Negre, where cliffs and dense pine forest shelter peregrine falcons, with fishermen's paths leading to caves once used for tobacco smuggling and mining.
What else is there to see between Granadella and the castle?
The mirador at Granadella overlooks a nature area of more than six hundred hectares, with a coastline running from Morro del Roabit to Cala de la Granadella and ravines descending towards the bay; the area is botanically rich, with birds of prey and farming heritage from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The name Les Pesqueres refers to a collection of fishing place names: men once fished here from the steep cliffs, sometimes standing on a fragile reed platform, mostly through long, dark winter nights. At Ambolo a defensive tower, the torre del Descubridor, once stood, and the view reaches from Cap de la Nau to Punta de Moraira; the viewpoint itself is freely accessible, but the beach below, Cala Ambolo, has been kept closed by the town council for some time now because of a serious risk of rockfall. The route ends at the fifteenth point, Castell de la Granadella, a small horseshoe shaped fortification from the eighteenth century with an outer wall of tosca stone, once manned by three soldiers with two bronze cannons.
